The Rescue Divers
Trip Start
Feb 10, 2006
1
29
32
Trip End
May 31, 2006
Buenos Aires,
Argentina
Thursday, May 18, 2006
So at 8am Sunday morning, the whole family got in the car and drove the forty-minute drive to Campo de Mayo, the largest military base in Buenos Aires where as I later learned, is the only military facility in the world which allows civilians to enter its premises for certain events.
We were greeted at the main gate of the Amphibian Engineer's Batallion by a young female soldier dressed in military gear, M-16 and all
01 Inside the gym
. She was cordial when we told her we were there for the Rescue Diver's exam and pointed the way to the simulator. As we crossed the gate, another young soldier who was standing by saluted us army-style as we drove by. It was one of the coldest mornings I had encountered since Autumn began but the sky was completely clear and although it was very early in the morning, we could all tell it was going to be a sunny day. I only hoped they had hot coffee waiting for us inside.
As the divers and their families started arriving, things started to get organized when the Director of the Scuba School arranged the students in separate groups. Each group would rotate with a different circuit so that everyone would be done in time for lunch.
Ed's first rotation consisted on the knowledge of the equipment. The students had to equip themselves in dry land in an efficient and expeditious manner, so that if there was an emergency in the water, they could quickly gear up and take action. Fortunately, this was all done in plain view of everyone so we got to watch as Ed and his team mates struggled with their heavy apparel.
02 Ed's dad on the Dreaded Lagoon
Next, Ed's group climbed the flights of stairs to the surface of the pool for their next evaluation. All dressed as divers, they submerged themselves together with their trainer to the bottom of the pool. This time they had to loosen themselves of their tanks underwater, leave them at the bottom of the pool, swim 10 meters in apnea back to the surface, take a breath and swim back down to quickly put their tanks back on before they ran out of air. Lucky for us spectators, we were able to observe the whole spectacle as there were circular windows all around the metallic pool.
According to Ed, everything up to now was a piece of cake. The challenge came when they headed over to the lagoon for the third and final stage in their evaluation. This lagoon wasn't as clean as one would like to think and it definitely wasn't warm. The divers had to make several swims out to the middle of the lagoon to rescue someone out there drowning. By the looks of them as they stumbled out of breath from the lagoon they were neither happy nor fresh. Most of them could hardly remain standing after several swims, and Ed mentioned that the water was so cold that it was hard to move a muscle. One guy even started spitting out blood from the bad decompression previously in the simulator. Fortunately, everything turned out as planned, Ed did an outstanding job as was expected and we all headed over to the gym for our lunch
03 Hot coffee at last
.There was "asado" waiting for us when we got there. Considering Ed and I are veggies, and considering this was probably going to be the last Argentine BBQ we would attend, we decided to have the first bite of meat in years. As soon as we bit into the "chorizopan" we both remembered why we had decided to become vegetarians, even if Argentina's meat was the best meat in the world. Just not our thing.
After a very long and exhausting day, we headed back home at around 4pm. We all wanted to shower and take a nap, which we did. I, for one, slept better knowing I was now to be safe in the water as long as I had Ed to watch over me.
Comments
CONGRATULATIONS
I'm so glad for your achievement. You make it man!!!
Now I can drown calm and wait for you to help me!! :-)